Protect Oregon's environment and its residents

Chlorpyrifos is an insecticide used as an ingredient in many fertilizers that ends up in the food we eat. In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency found that children eat up to 140 times the safe limit of this pesticide, which can cause lower birth weights, lower IQs, and behavioral issues.

Hawaii recently chose to ban this toxic chemical, needing to act independently from the federal government because last March, former EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, decided to allow the continued sale of chlorpyrifos, despite the EPA’s own scientific findings and recommendations.

And as a final act before departing the agency, Mr. Pruitt chose to grant an exception to allow a major increase in the manufacturing of “super polluter” diesel freight trucks, which produce as much as 55 times the air pollution as trucks with updated emissions controls, according to the EPA’s own study.

The federal administration’s picks at the top for the EPA are continuing the trend of slowing the release of their own studies on other toxic chemicals as well.

One such example is formaldehyde. An EPA draft report from 2016 stated that this chemical, commonly used in wood composites and present in air pollution from refineries, puts most Americans at higher risk of developing respiratory ailments and cancers, including leukemia. The release of the report on formaldehyde was blocked by senior staff and is likely to continue to be blocked by the new EPA administrator.

Lest we think these issues do not affect us here, just look at the July 12 story by Tracy Loew in the Statesman Journal about the toxin dieldrin, which “is a breakdown product of the insecticide aldrin ... banned for crop use in 1970. It persists in soil for years and can accumulate up the food chain.”

It is being used as fill dirt by a developer from Clackamas for a Salem-area apartment complex despite evidence that exposure can cause health issues for residents.

We must stand up at the state level to protect the health and wellbeing of residents and the environment. Our water situation in Salem recently points out the need for consistent and reliable safety standards and testing across Oregon, as also described in a recent Statesman Journal Editorial. We must have the ability to test in-state for toxins that can affect the current and future health of all residents, and do so in a timely and effective manner.

We can do this. For residents and businesses and communities to be safe, strong, and to thrive, we need to demand access to accurate information about the toxic chemicals in our environment from water to soil to the materials around us.

We must act together for the common good.

Deborah Patterson is a candidate for the District 10 senate seat in the November election against incumbent Jackie Winters. Reach her atdeb@debpattersonor.org.